Carnival Day 5: Slacking off

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All the food from Tuesday demanded I take another day of rest. So I went out to a beautiful beach in Niteroi called Itacoatiara. On the way I met a woman who has family in Toronto...we ended up chatting the entire bus ride and she introduced me to her friends at the beach.

Walking along the beach, I met this dude practicing Slackline. 

His name is Enrico, he's a part of a crew that competes in national slackline competitions. Very inspiring to watch him on the slackline. And this guy makes slackline look easy. I tried getting up a few times, just standing up is difficult. It demands a lot of concentration, balance, strong knees, stabilizer muscles...I have to say it got me hooked. When I save up a bit of money, Im thinking of buying a line getting into this.

That evening I went back in Rio and went with Mariana and a couple of her friends to jazz bloco.  Good company, good jazz, all-round good night.

Carnival Day 3: It's been a hard day's night

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After spending Sunday restoring my energy from Saturday's long day of parading, dancing and singing, Monday I was ready for some more.

I met up with my friend Mariana and some of her friends and headed out to what ended up being my favourite 'bloco' of my first carnival of life.

Bloco do Sargento Pimenta (English: Sgt Pepper's Bloco). These guys started their bloco last year with a turnout of about 10,000 people (after they had expected only a few hundred people to show up). This year, they went to a larger space expecting around 20,000...however,  it was more like 60,000!

Beatles songs all day long: some of them in Portuguese, many of them with a slighly samba rythm to them, but all of them amazing.

We sang along to Beatles songs all day. There was even a marriage done on their stage. Not a proposal, a marriage ceromony followed by: "love, love love".

After this bloco we went to another called: Bloco Cru. Here a band played a bunch of alternative and classic rock covers. Also, a great show....all for free.

Below I've posted a few videos from these blocos:

Listen to some of their recorded songs, high quality here:
http://pt-br.facebook.com/bspimenta/app_182222305144028 (Check out how they SAMBAFY the Beatles music!)

Wedding on stage:




Bloco Cru: Rage Against the Machine....Samba style

Carnival Day 4: A hard day's night deserves a day of rest

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I needed another day to reenergize again. I realized how important it is to plan carnival strategically. Decide on the blocos you really need to check out, decide when you'll get in some shut eye and figure out which healthy foods you plan to eat in order to counter act the beer and junk food you find at every bloco.

I spent the day with Mariana at the beach....it was sad to see the beach completely littered from carnival. Plastic cups and bottles, aluminium cans and glass beer bottles were everywhere....

That evening after our dispointment at being unable to purchase tickets for a Jorge Ben Jor concert, Mariana and I met back up with her friends and treated ourselves to a restaurant called 'Restaurante Broz':

The good: Pizza, Crepes and Sushi all under one roof. The pizza and crepes are served 'rodizio' style. This is pretty common in Brazil. If you've been to a Brazilian churrascaria...they are often in this style. Waiters continuously swing by your table and ask if you'd like a slice of a freshly baked pizza or crepe. The pizzas and crepes come out at random with different toppings/fillings. If you want a particular pizza, just ask the waiter and an order will be placed. Then there's dessert pizzas and crepes. Yum. Oh and there's a sushi buffet (pay by the kilo), just in case you're not feeling the pizza/crepe combo. And the pizza rodizio costs you only R$23 (dinner)...that's about $14CDN.

The bad: They didnt have my all-time favourite dessert crepe...doce de leite with coconut.

The ugly: with so many good options, and the fact that you don't even have to get up from your table to get your food...it just keeps coming....well I have to say its difficult not to surpass your limits. I defintely ate too much that night.